them.”
I replace the lid and go to the window, eyeing the imp perched on the porch railing. “Yeah, I guess. If that’s even possible. Hey, where’d the gold ranger get to?”
“
“Oh, please tell me you are not in the teacup room,” I say, standing and crossing the hall, Destin on my heels.
Sure enough, she’s in the only room in the house where everything inside is insanely fragile. The chairs and tables are ancient and look like they’re built of toothpicks and velvet tissue, and glass cabinets all around full of china cups that don’t look strong enough to handle a mild insult, much less a cup of tea.
Every single cup and saucer is different, and to my surprise, Camille seems totally fascinated by them. She peers through a cabinet at a shelf devoted to cups in the shape of different flowers.
“I would never have pegged you for a tea party kind of girl,” I say.
“Party?” she says, without inflection. “I just like tea.” There’s a spot of color on her face. I’m betting that’s as close to embarrassed as she gets.
Destin stands in the middle of the room, arms close at his sides, as if afraid that one touch will cause a chain reaction and the whole room will implode in burst of porcelain. Which frankly, I would pay to see.
“Guys!” Jul exclaims, standing at the door, holding a box of gauze. “Please come out of there, what if you break something?”
“You say that like we’re accident-prone or something,” I say. “...Alright, you have a point.” But my eye is caught by a series of frames hung on one wall. I’d always known this room was here, but I’d never gone inside for obvious reasons, so I’ve never seen this wall.
Most of the black and white photographs feature one or both of two girls with wide smiles - one pale with black hair, one dark with what looks like white hair, despite her youth. Picnics, a day at the beach in old-style bathing suits.
“That can’t be Ms. Bea,” I say, blinking at a picture of them sitting with legs dangling off the back of a pickup truck, grinning at the camera.
“You didn’t think she’d always been old, did you?” Destin asks.
“I didn’t think she’d be a babe,” I reply. “That’s just weird.”
Destin looks at a picture of them in an office, with two guys. He leans back in surprise. “I think that’s my grandfather,” he says.
“What, seriously?”
“Yeah, I recognize the police uniform he’s wearing. I didn’t know he was friends with Ms. Bea. Who’s the other guy? He looks pretty young, like our age.”
Despite Jul’s soft sound of protest, I carefully lift the picture off the wall and pop off the back cover.
“This is him!” I say, fitting the picture back together and turning it around to get another look. “This is the guy who died in the fire. This must have been taken at the mill - it burned down the next year.” He was younger than the rest, Destin was right - maybe fifteen, while the other three were about twenty. “He looks normal enough to me,” I say.
“Kinda reminds me of you, actually,” Destin says. Omen’s hair and skin are as dark as mine are pale, but he’s about my height - Destin’s grandfather towers over him, with a hand on his shoulder. Omen’s grin at the camera is wide, oblivious that his death is a mere year away.
“Morbid, dude,” I tell him.
“What? He has the look of someone who’d walk right into certain danger and drag his friends with him.”
Jul, however, is transfixed by a small portrait propped up on a side table. It’s painted, not a photograph like the others. The face is almost familiar, but the expression is wrong, and the hair. Mentally I switch out the blue- white hair for a dark brown, and trade the far-off, detached smile with a disapproving frown.
“Is that Rhys with white hair?” I ask, standing at Jul’s shoulder.
“I don’t think that’s him,” Jul says, but her expression is strange as she stares at it.
“Distant relative,” says a cold voice from the door. Ms. Bea stands there, arms folded. “What are you doing in my room?”
“Um...” I offer, “...scavenger hunt?”
Chapter 15
Jul
My grandmother had caught me and my friends snooping in an off-limits room when we were supposed to be at school for detention. And yet, I was the one feeling righteous indignation.
“What happened at the mill?” I asked, shocking myself with my own forwardness.
“The mill?” She managed to not even glance at the photos on the wall.
“Meredith burnt it down forty years ago,” I said. “You were there. Your friend died. And now she’s come back.” I trembled, remembering the woman’s scalding fingers reaching for me. But I hadn’t burned. “You knew a Mirrormaker - ” I pointed at the portrait, “didn’t you? I bet you know everything. You certainly can’t forget, all Grimms are Hunters, after all - ”
“Busy girl,” Bea said angrily. “So this was Simon’s plan? Did he send you here to play the innocent, all the while grooming informants out of your friends?”
I gasped as if punched. “What?”
“You think I don’t see you, greedily turning over every leaf in Havenwood? He’s sent you for the Tower mirror, and he’s never getting it. I swore he’d never have it.”
“This isn’t about the mirror!” I cried.
“Why else would you dig up the past with such fervor?”
“Because I want to know who I am!” I shouted. “I have to sneak, and hide, and lie, because
There. I’d said it. And from the shock on Bea’s face, there was no taking it back.
Camille, Mac, and Destin stood stock still, silent spectators to my outburst.
“All of us,” I said. “You and Tailor, you keep telling us to ignore what’s around us, but how could we? We’re here. We’re involved. If you want to protect us, give us the tools to protect ourselves. If you don’t, we’ll find a way to arm ourselves.”
I felt Camille take a step up to stand beside me. Gratitude flowed through me for the silent solidarity.
Bea’s expression was incredulous, and somehow distant, as if seeing something other than Camille and I standing there. “You’re not here for the mirror?” she said at last.
Maybe if I finally told the truth, all of it, maybe then she would finally believe me.
“I know where the mirror is,” I said, and she went rigid. “I’ve even been inside,” I raised my chin. “I’ve been doing a lot of reading. But Dad has nothing to do with it,” I stated firmly. “He’s never mentioned anything to me. He never let me look at his research. I didn’t even know magic was real until I found the stupid thing by accident. I haven’t even told my friends about it, because it just seemed...too much.” No lies, just...omitting Rhys.
“I’m sorry, guys,” I turned and apologized to the others. “I was going to show it to you eventually, it just...felt really private, I guess,” I said, suddenly embarrassed.
“Don’t,” Bea said sharply, then shook her head, letting out a long sigh and softened her tone. “Please, don’t show it to anyone. Not ever.” She gave me a long, considering look. “You want the truth, Juliet? Then swear to me that you will keep its location a total secret from this moment on. From everyone. That mirror is more important than you, or me, or this entire town. You can’t tell Simon, you can’t tell Camille,” her eyes flicked to the blonde girl,
